Child of the Wilderness
by Celesma
Summary: As the disaster of Fifth Moon bears down upon them, the characters reflect on Vash's self-imposed isolation. V/M, slightly AU. Now complete!
1. Prologue

A/N: This fic is pretty much based in an AU of my own making. That is to say, I intentionally changed some facts about canon (for example, in this story, Vash and Knives view Rem as more of a mother than their caretaker, and Vash has no idea of what happened to Tessla in Project SEEDS) while mixing in elements from both the anime and manga. My next two stories, "Endless Night" and "Philosophy in a Teacup," continue in a similar vein.

* * *

_**"I wandered lonely as a cloud  
That floats on high o'er vales and hills..."  
**_

_**William Wordsworth**_

* * *

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Prologue**

"Well, it looks like this is goodbye for now!"

Vash was smiling, but the truth remained clear in his deep blue eyes:

He hated those words.

Namely, he hated that he had to be the one to say them. In the darkness he could just make out the faces of his two traveling partners – one, being possessed of long brown hair, two large bright eyes, and an expression of concern; the other, characterized by sudden dark pain as the significance of those damning words reached her. He tried to put them at ease, summon his trademark grin (a barrier, a façade, anything to keep the Insurance Girls from discerning his true feelings), but the attempt felt forced and incapable of fooling anyone but himself.

It was even worse when the short girl fisted away a tear, too quick for anyone else to notice. His heart sank, and the perennial bully in him scoffed:

_Nice going, asshole. You made her cry. Why go on trying to make friends of them when it only ends in tears?_

The "them" he alluded to, of course, included not only the Insurance Girls but every human he had ever befriended over the course of his very long life.

_I'm sorry,_ the wimp in him responded; but it was addressed to one person only, a person whose name he could barely bring himself to voice:

"Meryl."

The short girl started at the unfamiliar sound of her name, then quickly composed herself. It was just as important to her to preserve her own mask of self-assurance. Yet for all her professions of no-nonsense, she found she had grown quite close to the gunslinger and the playfulness, danger, and love of life he had to come to epitomize over the last several months.

"Yes, Vash?" she began. It was a far cry from "You idiot!" or "Broomhead!" or "Drunken, raving, perverted moron who ISN'T Vash the Stampede" – and some small, hopeful part of her wanted him to notice.

He did, but not in the way she was expecting. "Ah, so you've finally chosen to acknowledge my infamy," he said, trying to make it a joke. When she didn't laugh, he nervously assumed a more serious expression. "Well, um... I just wanted to say..."

_What? I'm going to miss you? It's been fun?_

_I love you?_

"Be careful," he finally said lamely. It sounded so _stupid _coming from him, an outlaw whose reputation preceded him by 60,000,000,000 double dollars – to say nothing of the fact that Meryl had all but volunteered to track him down. Her job was exciting and well-paying, but never safe.

She was disappointed, but appreciated his concern. "Thanks, Vash," she said with a little nod of her head, "but don't worry. Millie and I have been doing this for years now. You could say we're as prone to danger as you are, even." They both laughed a little at that, even though neither believed it for a second. He wasn't called the Humanoid Typhoon for nothing, after all.

Millie, for her part, had a sixth sense that allowed her to cut through the veneer of happy-talk and BS like a hot knife through butter. She shuffled nervously for long moments, found she could contain herself no longer. "But Sempai, we can't let him go just like that! If anything, Mister Vash will need us even more now – "

"Not true," the gunslinger interjected sharply. "I can protect myself just fine. You two would slow me down, anyway."

Millie shook her head; her perceptiveness was rivaled only by her amazing lack of common sense. She plunged ahead, protesting, "I don't mean like that, I mean... emotionally. Mentally. People are dying around you, Mister Vash, and you don't know why, and... well! It must be awfully scary."

"Exactly!" he said dismissively. "People are dying, so that's why I have to leave!"

"But my second eldest brother always says – "

"JUST STAY AWAY!" he screamed in frustration. His reaction was so unexpected, so intense as to make both women draw back as if they'd been slapped. He subsequently felt guilt, and the longing for reconciliation, wash over him.

"I... I'm sorry," he said after the moment of stunned silence had passed. "I truly am. But you saw the bodies of Monev and Dominique. All those innocent villagers." His breath hitched painfully, forcing him to give pause. The memory of those who had gone before him was always – _always _– overwhelming. "You have to understand. Wherever I go, people are hurt. I would never forgive myself if something happened to either of you."

He didn't need to add that he'd been struggling with the very issue of forgiveness for nearly a hundred and thirty years after Rem's death.

"Please. I'm asking you to trust me. That means no more questioning, no more following me around. I know it's hard, but you'll have to forget the name of the Stampede from now on."

Millie's face twisted into something like childlike disbelief, while Meryl's held an expression of cool acceptance. "He's right," the latter said at length, surprising them all. "Vash, I have no idea what is going on, or why these... Gung-Ho Guns... are after you, but clearly it isn't for the reward money. Somebody is trying to hurt you, and it'll only get worse if we stick around.

"But I will not..." She paused for a moment, struggled to find the right words. "I won't forget you. That would be impossible. You are an amazing person, Vash the Stampede; and for what it's worth, I'm glad I met you." She expelled a long breath, emotionally exhausted by the intimation of what was – for her – a very difficult speech.

Vash grinned hugely. "That's great," he said. "Fantastic! I'm so happy we can all be honest about this."

_Except for me,_ he added mentally; but the thought was lost to the winds and concealed by the dust of a hurting world, never to be detected by human eyes.


	2. Chapter One

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter One**

"Ma'am? I don't mean to be rude, but where are we going?"

Both women trudged through the sand, bypassed the trading stalls of Promontory where merchants were winding down their meager sales pitches for the day. Meryl led the way with an expression that seemed at once enraged and despondent. "You'll see" was her only reply; Millie didn't much care for the tone of voice in which she uttered it. It seemed aimless, so wholly unlike the woman she had always known to have a good head on her shoulders when the circumstances called for it.

Clearly, Mister Vash's departure had affected her in ways she didn't wish to discuss.

At length Millie found herself being escorted down a carpeted aisle, away from the hustle and bustle of the more impoverished sections of the city; from the looks of the place, they had unknowingly stumbled into a casino. She squinted, struggled to take in the neon sight of a scantily-clad woman gyrating – or jerking, more like – to the movements of light being sporadically imparted by a disco ball. The disco ball itself, she realized after a moment of staring, was holographic: a facsimile of a relic from a bygone era.

A million adjectives to describe the wretched locale leaped to the fore of Millie's brain – _pretentious, incongruous, overblown, kitschy, Just Plain Weird._ Yet all she could say, quite dumbly, was:

"Um. What are we doing here?"

Meryl pegged her with an irked, but slightly sympathetic look. "Daddy always told me the best way to relieve stress is by gambling."

Millie's face turned pallid, any traces of artistic indignation lost in immediate concern for her co-worker.

"Sempai, you can't be serious."

"As a heart attack," the other woman replied, an embittered expression plastered on her face.

* * *

Vash the Stampede, for his part, was knocking back the drinks like there was no tomorrow.

He was currently situated in the likes of a seedy bar, constantly appealing to the waitress's pity by whimpering like a puppy whenever she didn't bring his liquor within minutes of his asking for it. After downing four bottles of booze, she finally gave him a look and asked if he was Quite Done With All That Drinking. His answer was to growl at her.

After half an hour was wasted in this manner, the outlaw leaned back in his stool, apparently satisfied with the amount of fermented liquid he had ingested that day. His fingers curled around a mug of hot cider, the main purpose of which was to offset the curdling feeling in his stomach. He sighed heavily.

The truth was that he didn't like pain. Couldn't stand it, in fact. He had to admit that the untimely dumping of Short Stuff and the Big Girl had hit him pretty hard, so it helped to drown (or rather, poison) his sorrows in the drink.

He chortled suddenly. _Heh, Short Stuff and Big Girl. Where do I come up with this crap?_ he wondered, marveling at his inclination to ascribe bizarre names to his favorite people.

Then he recalled Wolfwood's preferred name for him: _Spikey bastard!_

_Ah. Say no more._

He'd called Meryl by her real name a few hours ago, he recalled. It was still quite unsettling, to acknowledge her existence like that; it was like opening a little chink in the proverbial armor through which someone could sneak in and stab him over and over. The point was that he shouldn't have made himself so vulnerable so readily. The last time he had done that (which he was absolutely _not_ going to think about now) had cost him a limb and nearly his life.

"Meryl," he said out loud. It really _was_ a nice name, now that he thought about it. It brought to mind recollections of his brief infatuation with Meryl Streep when he was but a year old. Rem had objected mightily to his fascination with her – at least, until he confessed it was not simply for her looks; the woman's acting could win over any audience. Another, less innocent memory involved himself and Rem watching her portray the main character in a vid called _Sophie's Choice_; he remembered the taste and smell of his own tears as they both wept profusely at the tragic ending. (After being warned of the vid's emotional intensity, his brother Millones balked and read the book instead.)

Now, one hundred and thirty years later, Vash refused to see his Meryl meet the same end.

Still, the decision was killing him. Meryl – when looked upon as a human being, and not a slightly endearing nuisance or however he had wanted to envision her before – was one of the most interesting females he had ever encountered. It appeared that, for him, she represented the best in humanity while retaining her own intrinsic qualities, the things that made her... herself. The same went for Millie, too; and all the other good people he had met up with that hadn't automatically earned a grisly death at the hands of his evil twin, or died of old age, or –

_Shit._

Memories flooded him, forced his third eye to turn inward and examine events that he thus far refused to accept as fact, except perhaps in his deepest dreams.

_he saw himself, laughing and joking with his friends in Sky City _

_gripping the hand of the minister, years later, as one by one they were buried in capsules_

_crying and stumbling through the wreckage of Lost July_

_emotionlessly peering down at his bloodied, disengaged limb _

_gazing at his brother's sadistic partner with unadorned horror as he pretend to draw a gun and shoot Meryl, completely unbeknownst to her_

And finally, that awful telepathic cry:

_ETERNAL PAIN TO VASH THE STAMPEDE HA HA ETERNAL SUFFERING HE WILL SUFFER YES_

"Bar... barkeep," Vash suddenly croaked, otherwise completely consumed with the task of hiding his tears. "Another round. Please." He hiccuped once, watched in dismay as his topaz glasses slid to the floor, effectively ruining the aforementioned effort. Another waitress (this one with a softer, gentler constitution) approached him, but she wasn't bearing drinks.

"Oh, honey," she said sympathetically. "You don't look so good."

Vash smiled weakly and hiccuped again. "I'm suh-sorry. I think I'm gonna throw up."

Instead of drawing back in revulsion, as he had expected, she merely clucked her tongue and helped him to his feet – albeit not too quickly. "Don't want you to lose your orientation and get dizzy," she admonished in a motherly tone. "That never helps anyone with a bad stomach."

She got him outside, watched dutifully as he submitted to the sickness, spilling the contents of his stomach onto the sand in no small amount. She didn't move until he tried to get up again and slipped, nearly falling in his own mess; she stuck out an unusually strong arm and he gratefully leaned into her, at length setting himself aright.

"Th-thanks," he said lamely when the worst pangs of nausea had subsided. "Yuh... you're helpful."

The bartender flashed him a grin, resembled Millie for one disturbing moment. "Hey, that's what I'm here for."

She brushed off her apron; it had apparently accumulated dust despite the fact there was no wind on that tepid full-moons night. "...So what's your trouble, honey?" she asked, procuring a shovel from nowhere and rapidly transferring the stringy piles of unadulterated _sick_ into a nearby dumpster. "And don't try denyin' nothing, either," she added, before he could get a word out in his own (admittedly fabricated) defense. "Grown men don't drink till they puke then cry their eyes out unless there's something really wrong."

He decided – for the _second_ time that night, he might add ruefully – to just say what was on his mind.

Or at least, the part that mattered.

"I... I think I'm in love."

_What the hell? That's NOT what I was going to say! _

The woman grinned at his stunned expression. "Sounds like you know what you want."

"Well... let's assume that the answer is yes," he replied tentatively. "For hypo-hypothet – " he gave up trying to pronounce the word and skimmed over it. "For now. But I can't be with this girl. You know it's a girl, right...?" The bartender nodded mutely. "Because, you know, I'm not gay..."

She just smiled.

"But yeah, what was I saying? This girl. _Meryl._ I care for her so much, but I can't be by her side. It's just impossible." His mind was beginning to clear, enough that he remembered not to mention the Gung-Ho Guns. "I'm... dangerous. Everyone who gets close to me ends up hurt. Even dead. I just don't want that to happen to her. That's why..." He gulped, blinked back more tears as he mentally groped for the right phrase. "I let her go."

The waitress blinked once. Twice. Coughed.

"Well, the solution to that seems pretty simple," she said, after a beat.

He was incredulous. "REALLY?"

"Yeah!" she said, grinning.

"Just quit hunting bounties!"

The look of joy that had flooded his face promptly disappeared in a straight line of confusion."...What?"

"Yeah, y'heard me," she said, looking for all the world as if she had just announced the cure for penicillin. "You're a bounty hunter, ain'tcha? It's all a matter of finding a steadier job – something safe and fairly predictable, like mine!" Her grin, if such a thing was possible, only widened further.

"Oh... that's nice," he said, unable to conceal his disappointment. She had it all backwards. Fortunately the bartender didn't detect it, and she continued:

"Yep, it sounds you're always moving around, running into the baddies, so why not just settle down permanently! It makes a lot more sense than writing off your gal for good."

He placed his elbows on his knees, tapped his right temple in a thoughtful gesture. She was right. It _did_ make more sense. A LOT more sense.

And yet, it wasn't like he had never considered it before.

After all, he and Meryl had reluctantly perused that subject only a week ago, when he first realized how he felt about her...


	3. Chapter Two

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter Two**

Meryl Louise Stryfe, what in the world are you thinking?

_My brain is ticking off a long list of invectives to describe my stupidity even as I inch toward Vash's bedroom, bearing a plate of salmon patties in my trembling arms. It's bad enough Millie and I almost saw him naked an hour ago, but now I am inventing any damned excuse to come see him, to just... be with him. I really can't describe it. It's nothing like a physical attraction on my part – really, it's not – but I have been experiencing this genuine urge to come and talk with him. About anything. I sense there's a lot of pain the man's holding back from me; and after the whole Monev incident, I feel somewhat obligated to provide him with an emotional release valve._

_After all the times he's saved my ass, it's the least I can do for him._

_Millie, for one, personally approved of my decision beforehand. Knowing how perceptive the girl is – SHE ought to be called "Sempai," not me – I felt it couldn't be all bad. Could it?_

_"Hey, Broomhead," I say before knocking, hoping the familiar affront will put him at ease. "You in there?"_

_Silence. Then:_

_"Yep."_

_"You gonna let me in?"_

_"Depends."_

_I detect pronounced mirth; no surprise there._

_"Hm?"_

_"What's the password?"_

_What the hell? "What do you mean, what's the password?"_

_"I'm asking the questions here!" he retorts childishly._

_"Oh I don't have time for this," I growl. "Look, I brought you salmon sandwiches!"_

_"BINGO!" he cries joyfully, swinging the door wide open. My faces flushes a deeper shade of crimson as I note that, while he's clean-shaven and dressed in his idiosyncratic red coat, his hair is still hanging in loose tendrils about his face. It's vaguely (dare I say it?) sexy._

All right, old girl, time to leave before your imagination gets the best of you...

_"Uh, uh, here's your sandwiches. Bye!" I barely manage to squeak out before turning square on my heels, praying he doesn't see the blood rushing to my cheeks in less time than it takes one to say Outlaws and Insurance Girls Do Not a Couple Make. _

_The anxiety possessing me, in fact, causes me to involuntarily shudder as he seizes me by the shoulder and affixes me with a strong aqua stare._

_"Hey," he says, in a gentle tone that belies the strength in his grip. "Don't leave..."_

_"Okay," I reply automatically._

What the...? _Okay?_ Since when did Derringer Meryl become such a pushover?

_Instead of voicing my true feelings, however, I smile and sit on the bed next to him. Which is maybe what I wanted to do all along; I don't know.  
_

_All I understand is that, despite my initial inhibitions, it feels good to be near him._

_"Thanks. It's no fun to eat alone," he says, giving me an appreciative grin. This time the delight is apparent in his eyes, which means it's for real. I have made him happy. Oh, God. I suck in a labored breath._

_He tucks into the patties like (as I have said of his eating habits in the past, in a tone of more than slight disapproval) a wild hog in heat. After inhaling the first three, he slows down just long enough to look at me; and I feel as though I am being subjected to an intense – but not unkind – assessment. "You look tired," he observes at length._

_"Well, yeah," I say, shrugging noncommittally. "I was up all night typing the report."_

_"About me?"_

_I nod._

_"Huh," he murmurs to himself, appearing otherwise uninterested. Yet after a long pause he goes on to ask:_

_"So, uh..."_

_"Yes?"_

_"What exactly do you say?"_

_"Oh, you know," I reply. He couldn't possibly, of course, seeing as he's never worked for an insurance bureau. "The usual."_

_"Ah," he says mischievously. With no prior warning he begins to sketch out his own goofy profile:_

_"Vash the Stampede. Tall, dark, and handsome. Age, 24. Libra who enjoys donuts and moonlit walks among the tomas. Accused of being a perverted, loony idiot by some." He glances meaningfully at me on that last sentence._

_"Well, that's because you are," I protest weakly. He isn't having any of it._

_"You might as well just 'fess up, Insurance Girl, 'cause know how you really feel."_

_My eyes grow wide and I stiffen._

Oh, my God... does NOTHING get past this man? How could he have figured it out so quickly?

_My thoughts are racing a million iles a minutes, combing over all our previous interactions. How could I have given myself away like that, anyway? Did I act too concerned? Was too bitchy? Could I have – _

_"Just admit that you're insanely jealous of my height!"_

_"W, what?" I stammer after a moment, a cocktail of conflicting emotions slamming into my consciousness; my stomach unwinds from its involuntary spasms. "Your HEIGHT?"_

_"Yep," he laughs, placing his callused hand in the air, level with my eyes – which are no longer about to pop out of their sockets, I might add. "Everyone here is, what, at least six feels tall? You're a five-feel nothing. Don't tell me you're not envious."_

_"That's mean," I say, playfully swatting his hand away. At the same time, I realize that his teasing is every bit an attempt to bring me out of my anxiety. Ironic, really, as my barrage of insults had been designed for the same purpose._

_Which means, ultimately, that he DOES glean a hint of my feelings for him._

Damn that Vash! He's better than I thought.

_I remain silent as he polishes off the last sandwich, his hunger more or less satisfied. As in gratitude, he offers me a beer; but I decline. _

_"Come on," he wheedles, "it's low-carb."_

_"It's not that," I say. "I just feel that drinking is pointless and potentially harmful."_

_He shrugs off the public service announcement, but concedes that "maybe it's better you don't. You look hardly old enough to drink, anyway."_

_"Hey!" I cry, truly offended. "I'm 21, you jerk!"_

_"All the more reason to keep off the bottle," he chuckles. "You newbies never know when to curb your drinking, anyway, not till you're as incapacitated as a fish out of water."_

_"Coming from an alcoholic like YOU – " I reach out as if to strangle him, then pause as another thought occurs to me. "Listen, doofus. We're not that far apart in age, so quit patronizing me. I don't appreciate it._

_"I'm an adult, just like you."_

_Something about those last words effects a change in his mood, like I've said something unbearably sad. "Yes. Of course. You're right," he says, but his gaze is fixed upon some random point beyond my sight. He looks very old. "I'm sorry."_

_"As long as we have that straight."_

_"...That I'm a doofus?" he suddenly says, returning his attention to me. He grins insufferably._

_"Oh, never mind," I groan. I know enough by now to understand that he's putting on an act – that, for whatever reason, he really IS unhappy, but hides it for my benefit._

How can I get him to talk to me honestly? I'm not the kind of person everyone warms up to... I'm not Millie Thompson.

_The answer hits me as abruptly as if I've been slapped in the face. _

That's because you're Meryl Stryfe.

_"All right, bakayarou!" I snap, startling him out of his feigned reverie; he stares at me, mouth agape. "I don't know why you insist on maintaining this charade, but you're clearly full of crap and I'm sick of it. Just TALK to me, damn it. None of this fake cheer, either, because it doesn't help anybody – least of all you." I take both his hands in mine, and continue:_

_"Look, I know I'm just as bad. So I'll start. Your name is Vash the Stampede. Despite what everybody says about you, you're a good and kind person; and you don't deserve any of the troubles that come into your life, and God only knows how silly this sounds but I – "_

I... I...

_"...I can't stand to see you hurt like this," I finish, uncertainly._

_A long, uncomfortable silence ensues – though, I must admit I enjoy the heady feeling of righteous indignation, as well as relief that I was able to successfully express my feelings. Vash, for his part, looks like he's two seconds from fainting dead away. After about an eternity in which we lock concentrated stares, his jaw tightens as if in resignation. His fingers curl around mine for a moment, then glide up to the nape of my neck. They remain there, gentle and immobile, as the rest of him engulfs me in a silent hug._

_He says one word to me._

_"Thanks."_

* * *

While Millie was born knowing she had a second stomach for beer and ice cream, she couldn't help seriously worrying about the effects Wild Turkey had on her partner's constitution – particularly when it was ingested in such copious amounts.

"Sempai, you've had nearly a bottle now," she said in low tones, so as to offset the former's high-pitched, unapologetic hiccups. "Hadn't you better stop...?"

_"Shtop?"_ Meryl's glazed eyes lit up in what could have passed for recollection of an earlier event. Something that angered her. "That V-vash told me I wouldn't ah been able to shtop... an' I'll be damned if he wasn' RIGHT..." She coughed once, leaned against Millie's strong shoulder. "I'm too young, too young for all of this... take me to the craps table, willya?"

"There, there, ma'am. It'll be all right," Millie said soothingly. She tried to force a smile, but the attempt strained her already sore cheekbones. Plus, Meryl didn't look like she was buying the sentiment. She had wasted nearly a week's salary on the craps, anyhow.

_Oh, my. So this is how Mister Vash feels..._

The big girl took in her sempai's dead weight (hard to think of her as the superior now, really, when she looked so tiny in her arms) and gently deposited her onto one of the nearby couches in the lounge/karaoke section. "Everything'll be all right," she said again, but mostly she was just trying to reassure herself. She had always been taught, for as long as she could remember, that all things came together for good because it was in God's hands; but it just felt so hard to _believe _right now, what with Sempai being down for the count and all. Still, she wasn't giving up hope – not by a long shot.

_I don't understand you, Mister Vash,_ she thought, not for the first time. _You and Sempai love each other. So why did you have to leave...?_

She felt no resentment, only an escalating sadness that permeated her features as the loud disco music filled her ears and quickened her heart.

Meryl Stryfe, completely unaware of her co-worker's distress, began to snore softly.

* * *

He's still holding me.

_The observation is made without much surprise. The feeling characterizing Vash's touch is not so much possessive as it is simply relieved. "Thank you," he says again, and that's when I blush. "I can be... kind of stupid like that." _

_"So I noticed," I remark cutely. He grins._

_"So, what's really on your mind?"_

_His smile straightens, and for a moment I fear he won't answer – or worse, withdraw into the shelter of his phony gaiety. After some time, however, he manages to stammer out:_

_"Well, uh, lots of things. There's you and Millie – well, not exactly YOU, I mean, but I worry about your safety, and all – and whether Wolfwood's doing okay – and how in the hell I can attend the funeral of Monev's victims when I'm not even allowed within ten feels of their families..." His eyes spill over, and his face resembles that of a lost, frightened child._

_The real gunman is far less articulate than the identity he's erected for himself._

_But he's more heartfelt, too._

Small wonder I fell for him.


	4. Chapter Three

A/N: Knives's "given" name here was shamelessly plucked from Shadsie's "Journey of Remembrance," a very impressive Rem-survives-the-Fall AU fic. (Hint, hint: go read it!) Because really, who names their kid _Knives?_

Also, there is Spongebob in this chapter. You have been warned. :P

* * *

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter Three**

_"I don't understand," Meryl says to me after a long, quiet period in which her hands expertly draw a needle through the edges of my tattered red duster while I toe an imaginary pebble on the floor. "You do nothing and trouble still follows you."_

_"Mm?" I look up and inadvertently meet her stormy gaze –__ somehow she's able to thread and glare at the same time. I shoulda known the girl was a stickler for multi-tasking. I'm also hoping she's as good a seamstress as she claims, or I would never have given her my coat. Still, if we're going to agree to be honest, the first thing I need to do is feel that I can trust her with my possessions: Rem's geraniums were as good a place to start as any._

_My heart, I figure, can come later... though, she really has no idea how much of it she's already stolen._

_"Sorry," she sighs, misunderstanding my thoughtful expression. "I'm not mad at YOU, I just... it makes me so angry, thinking about the crap you have to take from people day in and day out."_

You have no idea,_ I mentally assent. A puzzled look crosses her face, as if I'd said it aloud; and I cringe inwardly, realizing I've accidentally opened the link by which I can telecommunicate with others. Then again, it's so easy to be casual with Meryl, to allow psychic vulnerability, that it's a wonder I don't screw up more. "Y-yeah," I stammer after a moment, attempting to counteract her suspicions and failing miserably. "It's pretty, uh, incendiary?"_

_She looks at me like I just transformed into a cat. "That's a pretty big word, coming from a lunkhead like you."_

_An extremely visible bead of sweat begins to trail down the side of my head._

_"But yes, you're otherwise right. Exactly what I was thinking."_

_It takes a rather large effort on my part to restrain a sigh of relief._

_"...What I want to know is this," she adds, sending my heart plummeting into my bowels. "Just WHY do you put up with it, anyway? Why don't you settle down, maybe start a family? You sure seem to like kids enough."_

Don't you dare lie to her, Vashon Alexander Seibrem, or you'll never have another donut again!

_I open my mouth, then close it._

And don't say something stupid, either... like, I wish you could bear MY kids, Meryl...

_To compensate for my impulses toward the latter, I say nothing._

_"Clamming up, huh?" Her tone is bitter, as if I was voluntarily electing to keep her in the dark – as though, in the end, I really was nothing but the womanizer that all the rumors had made me out to be. "I should've known."_

_"No," I say, as gently as I can manage. "You're wrong._

_"I'll tell you."_

_Her expression softens then, the steely glint in her eyes disappearing in half-lidded concern. "The truth? And nothing else?" She puts down the object of her needlework, closes the gap between us before I can open my mouth to protest. "Because I hate it when you keep secrets from me."_

What are we, some old married couple?_ I quip in my mind, but Meryl's giving me that strange look again, so I continue:_

_"Well... do you want the long or the short version? Either way I'm afraid it's going to be pretty short. There are some things that I simply will not allow you to intrude upon, whether you like it or not."_

Touché._ This thought comes from her, not me. The intensity of emotions comprising it, however, startles me... yet all she can bring herself to say is, "Fine, the first one then."_

_"It has to do with a woman."_

_She immediately stiffens. I blush furiously as I realize my mistake._

Oh, shit. That had to be the WORST way to begin...

_"No, you don't understand," I say, studying her carefully blank features. "Her name is Rem Seibrem. Rem..."_

_It doesn't matter. Her face remains expressionless; the name means nothing to her._

_"She is – I mean, was – my mother. Of sorts. She raised me when I was a child."_

_THAT piece of information effects a change in her that is more felt than seen; I can actually sense the sudden increase in her heart rate. "Your mother?" she repeats weakly, as though it's never occurred to her that Vash the Stampede used to actually be part of a family. Unfortunately, the rumors only serve to reinforce the notion that I was unleashed upon this world full-grown, as Athena sprang from the forehead of her father in Greek lore. It's just one more method of dehumanization my name has been subjected to._

_"Yes," I affirm quietly. When she doesn't respond, I go on explaining the overlooked aspects of my rep. "Believe me, there's nothing I would love more than to retire to some obscure town and live the rest of my days in peace. But I can't, not when Kniv – Millones is out there... and anyway, I promised her."_

_"Promised her what?" Her voice barely exceeds the volume of a whisper._

_I sigh, as if mostly to myself. "Lots of things. That I would take care of Millones. That I would protect humanity from him. But mostly..."_

_My fingers curl around her wrists in an unconscious gesture, as though doing so will somehow transfer some of her own incessant female strength to me. And in a way, I suppose it does._

_"I promised I would never take a human life."_

_I can feel the cogs rotating in Short Girl's mind as she struggles to absorb all I've said; and not for the first time, I find myself questioning the wisdom of my actions._

Why am I doing this? Why am I letting a hapless woman in on a secret that could get us both killed? Is it that I don't care what happens to her?

...No. Knowing a little can't hurt her. And if she gets in too deep, I can always draw back. I can always be alone again.

_I pray to whatever gods there are that day never comes.  
_

* * *

"Craps."

That was the only word Millie could make out among the otherwise unintelligible murmurs of her Sempai. The big girl peered around furtively to assure herself no one was watching, then leaned down to answer:

"Uh, Ma'am, I think you better give it a rest. We haven't much money left and you don't want to overdo it on the gambling thing, no matter what your papa said – "

She paused, tense and hopeful, as her partner stirred.

"No," Meryl said. "I mean I gotta go..."

"Oh," Millie said. "OH!" She got up, too quickly, and subsequently knocked over a waiter bearing a tray of shrimp puffs. _"Bathroom!" _she shrieked, too flustered to apologize. "We need a bathroom! Where is it?"

"Damned gorilla woman!" the waiter replied in a voice that was at turns harsh and effeminate while mopping off tartar sauce that had accrued on his collar. "Here we do not use such vulgar language – it is called a lavatory!"

"You're the one who's being vulgar, calling me that!" Millie cried. In an instant she had her stun gun trained on him. "Prepare to eat big metal cross!"

"NO! Please, don't kill me." The server fell back, whimpering as he stared down the barrel of the formidable weapon. "Th-the restrooms are in the lobby, right next to the pool tables. Spare me!" He began to cry large noisy tears, thereby attracting the attention of the entire casino.

"Thank you," Millie said sweetly. In one swift movement she withdrew her gun, scooped up the permanently incapacitated form of her co-worker. "Well, toodles!"

She left in her wake a host of positively terrified staff members – many gun owners themselves.

"That was not normal," one of the scruffier patrons murmured to his companion, who nodded concomitantly.

* * *

"Oh, I'm a goofy goober – "

"YEAH!"

"You're a goofy goober – "

"YEAH!"

"We're all goofy goobers, then – "

"GOOFY GOOFY GOOBER GOOBER YEAH!"

Vash was no longer drunk; but one could hardly surmise that he was sane, either.

At the present moment he had no choice but to go on occupying the pub – engaging in anything and everything that offered even a remote hope of directing his thoughts away from the Insurance Girls for more than five seconds. This effort undoubtedly involved joining hands and dancing with an intoxicated waitress while reciting lyrics from a song about peanut people.

_Thank God it's well after closing time..._

"All right, folksh," he slurred to a non-existent audience, wrapping one lanky limb about his companion, "this one goes out to my bestest friend in the whole wide world! ...Uh, what's yer name again?"

The waitress's eyes disappeared in her drunken smile: "It's Lisa!"

"YEAH! _Lisa!_ ...Oh, and don't forget this big peanut guy!" he concluded, gesturing to an adjacent barrel of rum. The stupid grin that had always constituted nearly half his body language grew even wider.

"No, that's a pickle," Lisa interjected helpfully, "I'm sure o' it – " She cried out, clutched her head. "God, I'm so drunk."

"I know," Vash said, suddenly more sad and serious than she had seen him in the past few hours. She became dimly aware of the fact that he had remained perfectly sober while she had gone and drunk herself into oblivion. She swatted at him, unsuccessfully, before collapsing in his arms. "You big stupid pickle... made me think you were a peanut."

"I'm sorry, my friend," Vash replied. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry that I'm not a peanut."

Suddenly mindful of the absurdity of their little exchange – _what the hell was THAT supposed to mean, anyway? –_ Vash timorously shouldered the human bundle and prepared to lay her in the makeshift cot on the pub's upper level. (Lisa had, after a few drinks, confessed to the outlaw that she was the tavern owner's daughter, and that he had made up a bed for her on nights when he was forced to take sudden leaves of absence.)

The door swung open, admitting the brisk, chilly winds that so often accompanied the midnight hour.

A man subsequently followed them – almost as an afterthought, Vash noted with apprehension. He moved to shield Lisa from the cold, as well as from the potential threat the stranger posed.

His reservations were well founded, as a barrage of gunfire instantly exploded around them seconds later.

The initial shock stemming from the assault helped fuel the Stampede's drive to _move_; adrenaline pumped in his ears as, one-handed, he tossed Lisa's body into the air while opening fire with his prosthetic arm. Most of the attacker's bullets ricocheted harmlessly into the wall, while others struck Vash in such non-vital areas as the shoulder and arms; he let out a feral cry of pain before lunging backward to catch Lisa in her descent.

"Who the hell are you?" he cried as they both dove for cover behind a pinball machine.

"I think you know very well, Vash the Stampede," the man replied in a voice that instantly made his blood curdle. He lifted his face, enough that the outlaw could take in his scraggly features – Vash didn't recognize him in the least, but there was SOMETHING about the bloodlust in his eyes that forced him to acknowledge more than a passing familiarity...

"Legato!" he cried. The hatred and panic in his voice moved Lisa to tears; she buried her head in his coat and shook with silent sobs. "This man is innocent – you've possessed him! Let him go, NOW!"

"Oh, very well," Legato sighed; he seemed disappointed that he had been found out so soon. "But not before I give you a _message..._" His mouth curved in a sadistic version of a smile, and the Stampede could almost envision the psychic's own bloodless lips mimicking the gesture.

"Knives awaits you in Augusta."

Vash's breath hitched. "I know of no such person."

"Don't fool yourself. What do you think this is, a game?" Legato's grin deepened. "But of course... the Stampede can't be bothered to take the fate of innocent lives seriously. He'd rather go on living in a fairy tale, believing that his brother will greet him as joyfully as Esau met Jacob."

_"What are you planning?"_

"Nothing, if you comply. Be there to greet Kni – oh, excuse me, MILLONES – within five days... or we'll treat you to a reprise of what happened in Tonim Town. I don't think you need to be reminded of the 'mass disappearances?' "

No. He did not. Neither did Lisa; her mounting fear and grief was such that she had to fight to restrain a shriek at this revelation. Vash kept his arms protectively encircled about her, but he wasn't faring much better himself. "Bastard..."

Legato appraised them silently for long moments, then produced a small pistol from his pocket and held it to his temple. "Farewell, then."

They scarcely had a instant to scream before the wall was painted with the man's blood and brains.


	5. Chapter Four

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter Four**

"Lying bastard," Meryl snarled – or rather, tried to – from her kneeling position in front of the toilet. It went without saying that the object of her loathing was a certain gun-toting pacifist. She coughed a generous amount of partially digested food into the bowl, silently contemplated her predicament.

_My insides burn with the heat of a thousand suns,_ she thought bitterly, summoning to her dazed mind the verse of every love poem she had been foolish enough to take seriously in her twenty-something years. _Wherefore art thou the cure, Romeo? Do you fancy a kiss would make it all better?_

It was enough to make her sick from both ends at once.

"Meryl!" Millie's voice wailed from somewhere very far away (though in reality she was right outside the stall door). "Are you okay? Please tell me you're all right!" She sounded like she was about to cry.

Meryl waited before answering as her vision blurred more than once; she realized that she was fighting to hold back her own tears. "I-I'm okay," she said pathetically. "Please – don't come in – _ACK_!" She was forced to halt as her lungs heaved for want of air. "Damn, damn, damn!" she cried, and it would have been humorous but for the way she clutched her chest, as though she were about to have a heart attack.

"S-Sempai," Millie said. As she spoke, her every syllable shook with barely restrained panic. "D-do you want me to get some help? I-I can get a doctor – someone who can help, anyone – "

"It's not that bad," Meryl interrupted sharply. She would have been surprised, later on, to find that she was right. While her symptoms seemed severe, they were merely characteristic of mild alcohol poisoning. It was only Meryl's pride that prevented her from going straight home to sleep it off. All the same, that didn't make it a wise decision.

"I hate him," Meryl said vehemently after a moment. "I wish he were here now, so he could see what he's done to me. I'm sick as a dog."

"You don't mean that," Millie said quietly.

"Yes. I do. He's a selfish, lying prig with no regard for a woman's feelings."

"Was Mister Vash ever really that bad to you?"

"Just knock it off, Millie!" Meryl said, no longer in the mood to keep up with whatever mental gymnastics her partner had been devising in order to get her to admit her undying devotion to Vash. "You know exactly what I'm talking about! He was kind to you, too! He never treated me differently! He never saw me as anything more than an insurance girl; I was always a burden, an annoyance, an obstacle to his personal freedom – "

She paused midway through her tirade, sickly looking for anything else with which to stick it to him. "And the one time he shows me anything beyond a passing interest, the one time he treats me like a _person..._

"He ups and leaves," she said quietly. In a way, she was still shocked by it. "He. Fucking. Leaves. Me."

"Sempai!" Millie gasped. "Such language."

It was an absurd enough reproof that Meryl felt her rage dying away as quickly as it had manifested. How was Millie always able to do that? The short woman began to laugh, at once with agony and relief.

"Meryl," Millie said, as solemnly as she could muster. The sound of her voice was as solid and reassuring to Meryl as if she had been there holding her hand. "Maybe you haven't noticed it, but I've seen Mister Vash treat you in ways he wouldn't any other person. He's so patient with you, even when you scream at him. And the way he looks at you... it's the way Pastor-san looks at me."

Meryl nearly opened her mouth to insist that it wasn't the same thing, but the big girl wasn't through.

"I know no one really listens to me because I'm a silly goose, but my siblings did teach me a thing or two about life. And love. And I know that a person with as much bad luck as Mister Vash has got wouldn't leave the love of his life behind if he didn't have a good reason for it." Millie's voice deepened with conviction. "I don't even know what that reason is, and I'm able to accept it. I don't think he was right to leave, no, but..."

She sighed, leaned her frame against the door as if seeking an answer.

"Do you know why he left, Sempai...?"

Meryl swallowed, suddenly hated herself and her callousness. "Yes."

* * *

_"Mister Vash, I still don't understand," I say. The name by which I address him sounds stilted and forced, but some part of me goes on pretending that he has no idea how I feel about him and that I'd best just keep it That Way. "Are you saying the reason terrible things happen to you is because of Millones? Just who the hell is he? And why... why do you have to 'protect humanity' from him?"_

_Vash looks at me for the first time in probably a minute. For the most part he's been absorbed in his own thoughts, mechanically reciting the reasons as to why he will never settle down and live peacefully. His gaze seems particularly distant as he replies:_

_"Millones is my brother, but he's nothing like me. In fact, he's completely sworn off the philosophy we were taught as children. Rem insisted no one had the right to take the life of another. He replied that she was a fool._

_"Then he killed her."_

_"Oh, my God," I say before I can stop myself. The whole time I'm thinking wildly:_

What kind of person could do that to his own mother? How could this Millones be even remotely related to Vash? He's a monster!

_"No, you don't understand," Vash says, contradicting me. I don't even stop to wonder how he can read my emotions so well. A couple of fat tears slide down his cheeks as he tries to convince me that his brother's not a total rat bastard._

_As far as I'm concerned, the only person he's lying to is himself._

_"Millones used to be compassionate," he says, and his breath runs ragged with restrained sobs. Never have I wanted so badly to hold him, to take him as Rem probably did when he was a child and whisper sweet nothings into his hair. "I swear it! I, I just don't know what made him change. Every night I lie awake and turn it over in my mind, wondering why – no, HOW – he could even think of doing such a horrible, evil thing..."_

_"Wh, what exactly happened?"_

_He gives me such a pained look that I instantly wish I could take back my question._

_"Never mind," I quickly add. "I don't want to make you relive bad memories if that's what it comes to."_

_"No, it's okay," he says quietly. "It's just..." He turns to lock stares with me; his eyes are gentle and inoffensive. "This is hard enough, y'know?"_

_"I'm sorry." I turn away, as I feel like crying myself. "I really am. If I had any idea, I would have never made you tell – "_

_"It's all right," he repeats. "That's not the real reason, anyway. If I told you how Rem died, it might actually endanger you. You'll just have to trust me."_

Vash, I would trust you with my life,_ I affirm silently._

_And evidently the sentiment must really show in my face, because a second later he smiles disarmingly and I catch just the barest hint of a voice in the back of my head, whispering:_

Thanks, Short Girl.

* * *

Amazingly enough, Lisa helped him mop up the blood. That, in Vash's mind, was proof enough that God ought to whisk her away to heaven right then and there.

Now wasn't the time to dwell on such impossibilities, however. An innocent man had been murdered – though, to the rest of the world it would appear a suicide – and Millones was still on the move, tracking him down as steadily and cruelly as a cat pursues a mouse. Worse still, the people of Augusta were in mortal danger.

_Because I'm coming. People always die because of me._

The body of the man that Legato had possessed to fulfill his purposes was currently being transported to Promontory, in a Jeep. Vash had wheedled and whined until the car's driver finally agreed to procure identification of the stranger, as well as funeral arrangements. It had cost him all the money he had: 400 double dollars.

"If you don't do it," the outlaw said darkly, a glint of steel shining in his pocket, "I'll hunt you down and make your life miserable."

"Yeah," Lisa added. "Me – _HIC! _– too."

"You really should go back to bed," Vash admonished gently, but she paid his warnings no mind. "I'm going to watch over you tonight to make sure nothing else happens."

_ Though, even if Legato came back, there's nothing I could do._

_Damn it! I'm totally helpless against that freak!_

An hour later Lisa began to doze off. Vash took that opportunity to tuck her into bed, wipe away the tears that clung to her cute freckles. Though the Stampede was mentally and physically exhausted himself, he had a much higher endurance for fatigue than humans did. Therefore, he determined that he could easily stay up the rest of the night without suffering any long-term damages to his health.

Besides, he didn't feel up to facing yet another nightmare cataloguing his sins against Rem and humanity.

_I lost another one, Rem..._

_I'm so sorry._

* * *

Meryl placed her head on Millie's shoulder, still surprised that her partner had offered to carry her piggyback all the way to their hotel room – while cradling the damned stungun in her elbow, no less!

Of course Millie, being the gentle giant she was, had not considered it a problem in the least; but Meryl did, and that's what made her convictions of guilt and shame that much stronger.

_To hell with everyone else's opinion, I KNOW I'm right._

Her attitude was insufferable and she knew it. It was just like back when she and Millie had been trying to protect the Badwick family's Geoplant at Little Arcadia. She had been convinced that she was a "cold human being," a person who simply sat back and watched atrocities occur without making any efforts whatsoever to change them.

No better than a hardhearted mercenary, and certainly nothing like Vash the Stampede and Millie Thompson.

_Stop it, Meryl. Don't let these feelings take over._

But she found she couldn't stop the flood of negativity that possessed her with all the strength of a Lev. 5 sand typhoon. Her internal woe was compounded by the vague realization that even her analogies suffered from numbers – the ultimate representation of everything she hated about herself.

Millie shifted ever so slightly and Meryl's chin came up. She took stock of her surroundings silently, noted that they were in the lobby of a nondescript inn. Millie was trying to fish a key out of her pocket with one hand, but the task proved exceedingly difficult as her as Sempai's arms were still slung obstreperously about her shoulders. Meryl took the hint and got off.

"This is strange, Sempai," Millie said, patting down her body in bafflement. "I'm sure I had the key right here... oh – ! It must have fallen out of the hole in my pocket." She began to laugh nervously as she pointed out the tear.

"We'll have to get that fixed," Meryl said distantly. Then: "Just ask the manager for another one."

"Sure thing, Ma'am!"

The shorter woman nodded, closed the distance between herself and a couple of comfy-looking couches. She settled down in one, exhaled a sigh that seemed to go on forever.

Suddenly she heard – or thought she heard – snatches of a conversation regarding Vash. Her ears perked immediately.

"Remember that guy in the white coat? The one behind the _Slaughter Café_ incident?"

"Yeah?"

"I hear he's one of Vash the Stampede's cronies!"

..._What?_

Meryl whirled around, stared at the two men occupying the couch next to her. The taller one, apparently having been addressed, replied:

"Are you _serious?_ That would explain why his methods were so damned vicious."

"Yeah," the former affirmed. "He's a devil in red, is what I say!"

"Man, I wish he'd just die already!"

"SHUT UP!" Meryl cried suddenly, surprising even herself. The two men gazed at her in a mixture of offense and astonishment that a woman could say such a thing to them.

The aforesaid woman, after a moment of mentally vacillating between apology and aggression, decided she really did not give a damn what they thought.

"How could you just stand there and say all those terrible things about him? I mean, you have _no idea_ what kind of person he is. I think you're disgusting!"

"Gee, Meryl," Millie suddenly put in. She was standing just a few feels away, dangling the key to their room in one hand.

Meryl felt a deep blush creep over her face, but ignored it. It was like she was experiencing some catharsis of the soul, the outcome of which would ultimately disclose what she would – no, what she HAD – to do in the moments thereafter.

_Follow him. Follow Vash._

"Millie, put away the key," she said, paying no heed to the dumbfounded reactions of the men beside her. "I don't know what I've been running away from all this time."

Millie's expression made several transitions – first to that of confusion, then disbelief, and finally outright joy. "Sempai!" she cried, smiling hugely. "You don't mean...?"

"Yes, Millie," the shorter woman replied, and suddenly she grinned with foolish ecstasy as well. "We're going to do it, even if we have to travel to the ends of the desert.

"We're going after Vash the Stampede!"

_"Hooray!"_ Millie enthused, pumping her fists in the air. "Let's go, Sempai, let's get 'em!"

The two women joined hands and skipped outside into the frigid desert air, laughing crazily all the while.

The remaining males, for their parts, did not dare to make a comment until well after a minute had gone by.

"Marty," said one.

"Yes?"

"Let us never speak of this night again."

* * *

"My name is... VASH THE STAMPEDE!

"Ladies and gentlemen of Augusta, please forgive the intrusion, but it's time for my daily massacre. And if you still don't believe I'm the real thing, take a good long look at me and start freakin' out. Observe the red coat, the lovely blonde locks, and – if you're still having doubts – the 100 percent accurate marksmanship!"

_POW POW POW POW_

"If you people don't want to die today, get at least 100 iles away from this place as fast as you can and live happily ever after!"

His efficient, albeit ridiculous, efforts to clear the town of civilians met with fitting results: people began screaming and heading for the nearest exit in droves. Vash found himself smiling, despite his steadily mounting dread. Was he really that scary of a guy?

Satisfied that he had vacated everyone – including a crippled old lady who had mightily resisted his attempts to move her with a few well-timed swings of her frying pan – the Stampede settled down onto the dust with a great sigh.

_Damn, that was exhausting... and I haven't slept in forty-eight hours._

_Did you intend this all along, Legato..._?

He waited in stolid silence for an hour.

Then something happened.

"Ya still moping there?" a voice from above drawled lazily. Vash brought his head up quickly so as to meet its owner: a tall, masked figure adorned with spikey half-spheres on either side of him. His eyes shone with what could only be termed a malicious glee. "I woulda thought a guy like you would be prepared for anything."

Vash ignored the taunt. "Why are you here?"

"To kill you, of course. Oh, and to inform you of who's been cleaning up behind you all this time. Failures like the Gale and Psyclops don't get to go home – unless you consider hell a home."

Vash's features twisted into unrecognizable fury. "That was you?"

"What's it to you, chicken-shit? But I digress. My name is E.G. Mine; I'm No. 5 of the Gung-Ho Guns. With one snap of my fingers I can turn you into a lovely pile of mincemeat." He briefly indicated his weapons, littered with nails, before landing nimbly on the ground before Vash. "You haven't got a chance, so just stand still while I kill you, hmm?"

Vash calmly met his gaze. "For someone who claims to be able to kill me with one snap of his fingers, you're awfully slow."

"What are you babbling?"

"I'm saying you've already been beaten."

"Wha – ?" It was only in that moment that his foe realized that the mechanism he used to activate his deadly spike attacks was missing.

"Looking for this?" The outlaw casually fisted the round apparatus. "Don't bother."

"Oh, _shit_ – " the Gung-Ho Gun began to say, but was silenced by the sound of Vash's travel bag connecting squarely with his head. _"Aaaarrrggghhh!" _he cried in pain, faltering underneath its weight to a comical degree.

"Don't quit your day job," the outlaw remarked merrily, shouldering his bag and making as if to leave. "Otherwise you might just find your financial situation wanting."

"Don't – try to be funny – with ME, you bastard..." E.G. Mine tried and failed to get up, indignant fury emitting from his debilitated form in waves. "I could still – tear you apart."

" 'Tis only a flesh wound, right?" Vash intoned in mock solemnity. "Sorry, pal, you're finished."

A gunshot rang out, pounding in his eardrums and cruelly echoing the truth in his own words. E.G. Mine whimpered once and lay still, blood pooling from his chest.

Vash's horrified stare shifted about haphazardly as he looked for the murderer. At length his eyes set upon one Rai-dei the Blade, though he could not at the time have known it. Said samurai was calmly seated upon the head of a capacious sandworm.

"Vash the Stampede," he grunted by way of response to the unspoken: _WHY?_ "As you yourself pointed out, he was no match for you. He was merely delaying the inevitable.

"Your battle is with me now!"


	6. Chapter Five

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter Five**

"How could you do something like that?" Vash asked after the Blade had introduced himself. His voice remained calm, even, undisturbed.

His appearance, however, suggested something else entirely.

"You weep in vain, Vash the Stampede," Rai-dei intoned without sympathy; indeed, the only thing emotional about his reply was the delight he appeared to take in saying his name. "E.G. Mine was but a pawn in Knives's plans to exact divine justice on you and all the vermin you protect. He has served his purpose, and that is all that matters now."

"He isn't God," Vash said heavily. "Just a fool who's grown more egotistical with age."

"Spoken like a true prodigal," the samurai said, shaking his head with what could almost be deemed pity. "You really have no clue as to his purposes for this world, do you? If you only repented, he could show you the wonderful things that are in store."

"I know exactly what he wants to do, and it's horrible," Vash replied. "And, hey. If anyone around here is repenting, it ought to be him."

"Blasphemy," the Gung-Ho Gun hissed, clamping his hands over his ears as though Vash had uttered a string of obscenities. "No one so close to Knives could speak of him in such emasculating terms!"

"I really don't care," Vash said, unmoved. "So... judging from your tendency to out-and-out worship my brother, that makes you, what, related to Legato?"

"Hardly," the samurai said in amusement, flicking away a piece of straw from between his teeth. "It makes me your mortal enemy."

And with that comment, he effortlessly hoisted the half-sphere left over from his last kill and flung it at the Typhoon; in the same moment he withdrew a sword from the sheath at his side and rushed alongside it.

His intended quarry was more than a little surprised – but all the same, Vash produced his revolver and fired one bullet that cleanly shot the late Mine's weapon in two. Rai-dei, for his part, leaped over what was left of the sphere and charged him. Vash dodged.

When it became clear after several minutes of attempted warfare that Vash was never going to use his Colt on him, the samurai grew infuriated. "Come here and fight me!" he cried, cursing as Vash evaded swing after swing of his deadly blade.

At length the two of them came to a standstill upon the base of a building, facing one another with uneasy but fearless expressions.

"Perhaps you've never heard of a warrior's compassion," the gunslinger supplied, even as his figure doubled over with fatigue. "I can't shoot to kill you."

"A compassionate warrior," Rai-dei repeated mockingly. Sweat dripped from his face and spattered upon the ground: the closest thing to rain this planet was ever going to get. "That is an inherent contradiction. It becomes increasingly clear to me that you do not understand the art of war."

"Oh yeah? According to who?" Vash said, never one to let a moral issue go.

"I can't expect you to understand," the samurai said, brandishing his sword angrily. "Your ignorance is an eyesore! How can you ever hope to achieve spiritual awareness that way?"

A pause, as the Stampede inhaled sharply. Something truly menacing emanated from his body in waves; the samurai was to later recall with a sense of panic that it resembled the method of those who attempted to unfetter their _ki_, or energy force, through sheer willpower.

"So violence and murder is the only way for people to know God," Vash murmured. This time the disgust was etched in his own voice, like so many commandments in stone.

"It has been the way of the mystics in my echelon for years now," Rai-dei replied, and was surprised to find that his shoulders were involuntarily shaking; worse still, he felt the ridiculous urge to justify himself before this paragon of virtue. "Besides, you are hardly inclined to call me a person... I was from birth a demon, doomed to a life of turmoil and suffering. If the only way to rise above my wretched existence is to kill, then I will not hesitate to do so!"

On these final words the samurai lunged forth, blood curdling in his veins, convinced that he was about to take on a deity and live.

Vash merely stared at him, did not make a move.

* * *

"This isn't good, Sempai," Millie said in trembling tones. She looked about their surroundings with an expression that suggested apprehension, tugged her toma's reigns tighter. "It's too quiet here. Mister Vash must have made everyone leave."

"No, this is yet another site for the disappearances," Meryl replied smoothly – almost condescendingly, as though she feared the big girl was right and her only manner of defense was to dismiss Millie's usually accurate conjectures. "Like Tonim Town." As horrible as that was to believe, it seemed preferable to actually supposing that Vash was somewhere in the city this very moment. Despite her former proclamations of bravado, she didn't think she was ready to face him quite yet.

_What kind of person have I become?_ she thought to herself, agonized.

"SEMPAI, LOOK OUT!" Millie's voice cut her self-pity session short. The small woman looked about, dazed, before her eyes finally settled on the shape of a... sandworm?

The beast was plotting a disordered, chaotic course throughout the city, slamming into buildings left and right while making guttural sounds of distress. At length it finally gained sense enough to plunge underground and save itself and everyone else a good deal of trouble – but not enough, apparently, to avoid the two human females in the process.

Quick as a whip, Millie reached out with one free hand and literally snatched Meryl up by the collar, whereupon she hobbled into the nearest building as the worm made its confused journey to the underworld. The shorter girl flailed her arms more from surprise than protest.

"What the hell is going on here!" she cried once it was safe to do so, clutching her partner's sleeves. "No one's supposed to be in this city!...Much less that _thing!_"

"It's Mister Vash," Millie repeated earnestly. "I told you, he's here!"

"All right, I believe you!" Meryl felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and wiped them away. "Damn, I really didn't want to have to do this so soon, but – "

"That's the ticket," Millie interrupted, helping her partner to her feet. "Don't you worry your head one bit, Meryl; we'll see him soon enough."

Something about the overly cheerful manner in which she said it gave Meryl cause to worry anyway.

_Please, Vash, wherever you are... keep yourself safe._

* * *

Rai-dei, never a slouch when it came to his studies, had recently adopted a technique in his fighting style that highly resembled Midvalley the Hornfreak's; that is, he could simulate the effects of an earthquake by focusing _ki_ through his weapon and unleashing it at a target.

It was information that the Stampede was completely ignorant of, to be sure – and as such, he was unprepared when the samurai feigned at the last moment, sent a shock wave that encompassed at least three buildings hurtling in his direction.

Vash leaped into the air nimbly, barely avoided falling into the huge crevice that split down the center of the battlefield. Halfway into his rushed ascent, he whirled about and located the hidden gun on his cybernetic arm. He aimed.

Rai-dei's eyes widened, both from surprise that the Stampede had eluded his best strategy and knowledge that he was completely defenseless at this angle.

But Vash didn't shoot, not right away. He appeared to waste precious moments aiming elsewhere, so as not to fatally wound his enemy.

"You fool!" Rai-dei cried, more chagrined than relieved that the gunslinger wouldn't give him a real fight. "That compassion of yours will be your undoing!" He quickly unsheathed his sword, but instead of wielding it with both hands he threw it; Vash cried out in pain as it struck him in the shoulder, drew copious amounts of blood.

The samurai grinned, complemented that attack with a few rounds from his sheath, which had doubled as a rifle during the battle. He proved exceedingly successful as the outlaw tumbled to the ground like a sack of bricks.

"I grow weary of your games," the Gung-Ho Gun said, approaching his opponent's motionless form. "I will make this as clear as possible: the only way to escape this conflict is to kill or be killed yourself."

"She... didn't give... her life for that..." Vash moaned. "There's always... there's always another way."

His voice was growing stronger as he spoke.

"Absurd!" Rai-dei thundered, administering a vicious kick to the outlaw's wounded side. "The woman who raised you is dead! She has no more power over you!"

_"No she isn't!"_

Rai-dei halted, his foot still in mid-kick.

Vash's head craned upward, leveled a furious stare at the samurai. "Rem isn't dead! She lives on in me!"

While unmoving, he quickly gained an upper hand on Rai-dei in terms of who was the more fearsome at the moment. The samurai trembled but said and did nothing. "It's you who refuses to live your own life; you'd sooner lick my brother's shoes than spare a thought to your own well-being! When are you going to realize that we are _none of us different?_"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Rai-dei cried; he took up his sword and thrust it into the dirt, only inches from the Stampede's head. The mixture of fury and confusion in his eyes was such that he appeared mad. "You know nothing of my devotion to him! He promised me fortune, bliss, spiritual achievement; beyond his words, I have nothing else to live for!"

Vash felt he understood something of what the warrior was feeling.

"Rai-dei," he said, remaining completely still but for the movements of his mouth.

"Listen to me. You do have a choice. You don't have to follow my brother. You can live your own life. Trust me, being normal" – here he laughed softly, and was surprised to catch sight of himself doing so in the blade's polished surface – "it isn't such a bad thing."

The samurai's shoulders sagged in resignation. "He's going to kill me, anyway. He should. I made a warrior's vow and I cannot keep it." He pulled the sword out of the sand, caressed its handle as though contemplating death by impalement.

"Listen," Vash said forcibly: he had seen more than his share of bloodshed for today. He pulled himself into a sitting position. "If your Master wanted me dead then I'd be dead. You were just mistaken, that's all. Call it a day. Go home."

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that markedly increased his anxiety.

"Better yet, RUN."

* * *

"Sempai," Millie said suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Meryl, who was currently attempting to coax her toma out of its hiding place. Much to her agitation and confusion – the sandworm was _gone,_ wasn't it? – the beast would not stop shaking.

"Look."

It wasn't often that the younger girl spoke in such a monotonous, serious voice. Meryl stopped all activity and did as she was told.

Watching as a creature emerged from one of the many darkened, tortuous alleyways, she felt sorely tempted to join the toma herself.

_No... it can't be... what is that..._

It was a man.

And yet it wasn't: for what manner of man was this who went without clothing, whose musculature and hair resembled that of a Greek god, and who left a trail of... _feathers_... in his wake?

Meryl shook her head in disbelief, sight obscured by hazy spots of light, hoping that when it cleared the man would be gone. Yet she found he had only moved a little further along the street, his movements jerky and indistinct. After an awkward beat of silence – neither insurance girl knew just what to do – she nudged Millie.

"I know where he's going," she said in a shrill whisper. "He wants to get to the city square. That's where the Plant facility is."

More importantly, it was where Vash was.

Millie understood and didn't even have to say it, tender soul that she was. Meryl shot her a look of gratitude and the two of them inched slowly down the road, gripping their weapons and one another's forelimbs should worse come to worst.

* * *

Rai-dei stood his ground for long moments – paralyzed by an incongruous mix of pride, terror, and shame – when Vash suddenly repeated himself and returned the samurai to his senses.

"Damn it, I told you to move!"

Without another word, Rai-dei picked up his sword and fled.

"Such a pity," a masculine voice issued coolly from behind the building that Vash was now eying with trepidation. "I believed I had wrung all the rebelliousness out of that one, but apparently I was wrong; the piece of trash still finds it within himself to turn tail in his Master's presence."

"Millones..." Vash started to say.

"Don't talk to me," the voice interjected sharply. Its owner sounded injured. "I don't want to hear one word from you, little brother, until I've had the chance to speak in my own defense. Are we clear on that?"

Vash's entire body remained immobile but for his head, which nodded subserviently in spite of his overwhelming urge to make a rude hand gesture. The lack of confidence he experienced whenever he was his brother's presence clearly superseded his innate sense of justice.

"Good," Millones said. "You were always a smart one." His voice dripped with condescension. "Now come a little closer. It's been a while; I want a good look at you."

Vash began to move forward; and when his brother responded in kind, he couldn't suppress the gasp that escaped from his lips.

It wasn't because Millones had chosen to forgo clothing, though in another lifetime the outlaw might have laughed himself silly at such a sight. Rather, he was horrified because the body his twin was in current possession of was not his own.

_What have you done?_ he demanded, breaking his aforementioned vow to remain silent.

_What, would you rather have a pile of rotting flesh for a sibling?_ Millones shot back. _Because, you know, that's exactly how you left me 23 years ago; were it not for Legato Bluesummers' assistance, I would be dead right now!_

_Please... forgive me for that, but I couldn't let you kill –_

"Oh, and somehow you're exempt from your own standards, turning the Angel Arm on me?" His brother's voice suddenly resurfaced in a scream. "You ABANDONED me, Vash! I was wounded beyond recognition, and you left me – "

"But I didn't leave, I stayed in July – "

"You stayed to help the _humans_," Knives snarled, as though that counted for nothing in his eyes. "You didn't once devote a thought to your own flesh and blood. All the while I lay there, a broken body, and I felt you moving and thinking and interacting among that filth!"

"What choice did I have? You were insane, you killed that man," Vash retorted furiously.

"And once more you arrive at the conclusion that I am mentally unstable," Millones said, suddenly reverting back to his calm demeanor; somehow, he seemed more dangerous than when he had been angry. "Really, Vash, I am growing tired of your insistence upon thinking like a child. My aim in disposing of Count Vasquez (like he deserves such a title) was to break your final ties to that damnable woman – "

"Our MOTHER," Vash corrected. "She was our mother."

His twin continued as if he hadn't heard. " – and hopefully correct your skewed sense of justice, though I admit my efforts failed in that respect. I mean, how blind do you have to be to ignore the atrocities that are occurring all around you: and all at the hands of those spiders!" His fists clenched and unclenched as though he would have very much liked to throttle his brother; but at length he sighed and ran his fingers through his long golden mane.

" I..." Vash began. "I know it's not good, what they're doing, but I'm trying to find a way to save both our sisters and the humans – "

"Oh?" said Millones, feigning interest. "And tell me, what kind of progress have you made in one hundred and thirty years?"

Vash said nothing.

"You see," his twin said, phrasing his words not as a question but a statement of fact, "that's because there isn't one. If there was, the spider and the butterfly would have existed, side by side, in idyllic bliss long before we were born."

"This isn't the same thing," Vash said. It was a defense he had attempted to convince himself of over and over in the past. "Men are but a little lower than angels; they're not outright predators."

"Ah, but only a little above the worms, if you recall the rest of the passage," Millones replied, sounding amused. "Please don't go quoting Scriptures at me; I got quite enough of that from Chapel."

"You still haven't answered my question," Vash said. "How did you come back?"

Wordlessly, his twin indicated a point beyond his sight. Vash turned around and saw a rock formation overarching the city's tallest buildings.

"Jeneora Rock?"

"Indeed," Millones returned. "Legato salvaged the remains of a SEEDS ship in order to erect a Plant facility there. Loyal, that one." His last words held a tone of approval and astonishment that some humans were worth preserving, at least temporarily.

"Is he there now?"

"Yes. We transferred my soul into the body of a Plant Angel, and she gave birth to me not even an hour ago. It was a long and difficult process, but..."

He stopped, a mournful expression gracing his features. It looked foreign to Vash. "Her sacrifice was not in vain."

Vash fought back a wave of nausea; bile rose in his throat. "You mean she's _dead?_" he said helplessly.

"Yes. I did not mean for it to happen" – here Millones shot a look at his brother, as though daring him to lobby another accusation of insanity against him – "but she understood the risks, as did I."

"And... she approved of your plan to destroy humanity?"

"What does that matter?" the older twin snapped, but he looked sincerely discomfited. She had not. Vash could only briefly savor this victory, however, when he continued:

"The Plant was compassionate enough to help one wounded to the extent I was... not a matter of allied ideologies, as you so naively suppose, but of simple kindness. No human would have ever done that for me."

_That's because you wouldn't let one try to help you,_ Vash thought wryly, but his comment went undetected.

"And since you seem to persist in maintaining this eternal impasse between us, I will say no more on the subject," Millones concluded. He inclined his head, as if to say, _All right, we're through talking, now on to the fighting._

Vash hesitated.

"I don't want to hurt you, Millones."

His brother stiffened. "Ironic. Don't you know that calling me by that accursed name is enough to send me into convulsions?"

"It's what she called us," Vash replied despondently. "Even when we were infants... you said you liked it..."

Evidently they were times his twin did not care to remember. "How many times must I tell you that my name is Millions Knives!" he hissed, and it was as if something in him had snapped. He lurched forward, embedded his fist in the other's stomach. Vash went down, coughing up blood, before Millones brought his knee up to catch him in the jaw. Searing white pain obscured Vash's sight, and he groped blindly for his weapon. The metallic taste of blood saturated his teeth, his tongue, his throat.

_No more of this. No more!_

He found the Colt, whipped it in his brother's face and cocked the trigger. Millones did not find it threatening in the least: he threw back his head and began to laugh.

"It hasn't changed," Vash said fiercely. "It's the same as a hundred and thirty years ago!"

"You wouldn't shoot me," Millones said, still laughing.

"You don't know what I'd do," Vash said. Fluids were streaming from his eyes and nose, but he ignored it.

"Oh, I know you, Vash," his brother chuckled, "and I know all about your little promise to Rem. You're a pliable wimp, but I can turn that to my advantage. I have air-tight proof of humanity's depravity – "

"Shut up, damn you!" Vash cried, striking him with the barrel of his weapon. The force of the blow sent Millones reeling back with a roar of pain, and in a moment he was on his brother: hands clawing at his face and throat before they finally latched on the crown of his head.

"I've been training my Talent for thirty years to show you this," the older Plant snarled, rage etched in every line on his face. His hands did not leave Vash's head. "Ignorant little fuck – show you the pain _she_ felt – "

The younger twin flailed every which way in an attempt to escape, but it was to no avail; he remained inexorably on his back, his eyes gazing into those of his brother, arctic and cruel and uncaring –

He blinked, and they had turned the color of amber, framed by thick lashes and imparting no reflection to suggest that he was trapped in them... What the hell...

He looked down at himself, realized there was no genocidal twin pinning him down. He was free. The gunslinger got up, feeling oddly relaxed; his heart no longer felt as though it would implode in his chest.

He looked about slowly, only mildly surprised to find that he was no longer in Augusta. Instead he was in an dark, insulated room with padded walls and a few toys.

_Did they finally put me in the loony bin or what?_

Despite the all-too-real possibility of this, Vash highly doubted it. Wherever he was, he was almost certain it had something to do with his brother's Talent. Since birth, the two Plants' psionic powers had expanded to encompass many different abilities – including mind reading, limited telekinesis, and what now appeared to be an exercise in remote viewing.

_That must be it,_ Vash decided. _He's brought me to the past to show me something, but what? _

He continued to look around the room, completely at a loss for what to do. At length his eyes settled upon the small, curled-up form of a girl in the corner; she shook with sobs that were more visible than audible. Vash stared for a moment, uncomprehending, then closed the gap between them.

"Hello," he said very gently, so as not to frighten her. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The girl's head wrenched upward – less in recognition of his words than in sheer terror of his saying them. She was quite pretty, Vash noted; her hair was of a blond sheen, cut shoulder-length, and her amber eyes darted from him to the locked door marked EXIT and back. She opened her mouth as if to form words, but was unable to manage anything beyond a croak.

Vash stared at her still more intently. He felt, not in so many words, that this girl would be better suited to telecommunication – would prefer it, in fact. He repeated his question.

_What is this place?_

Upon hearing these words repeated in her mind the girl halted her double-take and stopped to look at him for the first time. Vash detected a cocktail of emotions bubbling within her, not the least of which was something resembling pure relief.

_You... you talk to me..._

_Yes, like this,_ Vash finished for her. He reached out reassuringly, closed his fingers around her tiny digits.

Her excitement notwithstanding, the girl managed to express herself in straightforward terms.

_This is the mother ship for Project SEEDS. They keep me in this room... always, locked, in this room..._

Vash paled, struggled to understand her statement. This little girl had been on the ship with him and Millones? Impossible... he would have known...

_What is your name?_

The girl hesitated, but decided to invest her trust in him.

_T-E-S-S-L-A..._

And just like that, an intense pain ripped through Vash's real arm and propelled him back into the present.


	7. Chapter Six

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Chapter Six**

Vash's initial, fevered impression was that of being struck by fiery lancing darts. His entire body tensed involuntarily; every muscle visibly rippled underneath his skin, as though struggling against their bonds of bone and flesh. His right arm, especially, begged for a reprieve: it convulsed and thrashed about wildly. With every moment that passed, the pain coursing through him intensified several times over, so that it seemed he must unravel like an organic tapestry before being reduced to nothing more than a few threads of skin, floating on the winds that were now assaulting the city from every direction.

"Millones!" he cried, making a supreme effort to turn his face toward his twin's. "What's happening to me!"

His brother, to his alarm, could not answer him. His own eyes were dilated with shock, and his jaw had gone slack. "This is not my doing," he said, and Vash noticed that he had backed away from him several paces, was loath to come any nearer. Thick tendrils of hair whipped out behind him as his naked body shivered with cold and fear for the first time. Vash felt, at turns, relieved and rejected. Meanwhile, the alien sensation continued to pummel him mercilessly.

_Alone. I'm all alone..._

His thoughts inexplicably turned to Meryl – his Insurance Girl, his Short Girl, his Meryl, with her ebony hair cropped at the chin and her compassionate, lavender eyes. Eyes which must even now be shimmering with unchecked tears at his cruel and unfeeling departure...

The last thought had come to him unbidden. It was instantly put down, only to be resurrected as a series of vividly conceived scenarios in which she was rejecting him for a monster. _Monster, _she was screaming at him, _you're a beast and a brute and inhuman. _Fleeing from him in fear, with no clear idea of what she was doing except that she had to get AWAY from him.

Then her hair suddenly grew longer, longer, longer; it cascaded down her back in a familiar pattern. She grew taller in stature... or, perhaps, it was _he_ who was getting smaller. In his agitated state, he could hardly be bothered to tell. Before he knew it, she had turned into Rem.

_Demon child! I've raised a demon child. I should've let the rest of the crew kill you, so I'd never have to look upon your face._

_No! Please, Mother._ He didn't recognize his own voice, as childish and high-pitched as it sounded. _Please, don't hate me..._

_I'm dead, Vash, _she said, ignoring him. The rest of her reply was sounded out in muted, hollow tones._ You couldn't save me... you couldn't save your own mother – !_

As if to suit her action to her words, Rem's body crumpled in his sight. She had been killed courtesy of a gunshot wound to the heart; blood pooled forth from a hole in her chest in sickeningly massive quantities. Her eyes rolled up in her head, staring fixedly at nothing.

Then she disappeared, only to be replaced by Meryl. But this did nothing to comfort him: she, too, had met a gruesome end. His thoughts were solely of her dying, alone, in the dark. The Plant stopped just short of completely losing it upon witnessing this development, clutching his own tiny frame and all the while vainly attempting to ward off the icy spasms of grief that wracked it.

_Who are you?_ he screamed silently at the stars. A fresh wave of pain and terror overcoming him was the only reply, as his right arm haphazardly shifted, changed shape into a weapon of great and terrible beauty.

* * *

The answer, for Knives at least, revealed itself in due time. The first thing he had noticed about his little brother was that an aura seemed to emanate from him, an aura which he himself could not trespass upon. It spoke to the power of the Angel Arm – for, undoubtedly, that was what was being put to use here – that a barrier had to be erected in his brother's defense whenever it came into play. Yet, he'd never before detected such psychological distress on Vash's part. He could only guess at the sorts of things that were going on in his head, but Vash occasionally gave outward indications by screaming "Mother!" – or, louder still, "MERYL!"

"Who in the hell is Meryl?" the Plant wondered aloud. "Some human whore?" He was more than a little upset that Vash hadn't made any mention of their sister Tessla whatsoever, but maybe that was because he hadn't yet guided Vash through the entire bloody ordeal concerning her. "Still, he's emotionally spent over that traitorous Rem and a whore," he finished cynically, inwardly marshaling yet another mark against humanity. "This could have been my only chance to show my brother how the humans massacred our sister wholesale. Whoever has disturbed my plans will pay dearly, perhaps with his life."

He conjured up a message in his mind, sent it speeding to the outskirts of the dying city. As he did so, his normally placid blue eyes flared red in swift anger.

_Do you hear that, Bluesummers?_

* * *

Standing atop Jeneora Rock, his body trembling from exhaustion and elation and fear such as he'd never felt before, the telepath in question had indeed heard these words – heard them as clearly as if they'd been whispered in his ear, in fact. He gasped for breath like someone trapped inside a burning building, while the ghastly light of the moons beat upon his golden skin. Yet he was so firmly rooted in his human nature, in his hatred for the prodigal sibling, that he pressed on in his reasoning:

_The Master does not understand. He is too compassionate. Therefore it falls to me to properly punish you, Vash the Stampede. Nothing warrants a worse punishment than denying your true nature, especially one as grand as that which you are in possession of... so, I am going to show you what it means to be a Plant. At the expense of your own comfort, of course._

Even as Knives detected these thoughts from iles away and reciprocated with a wave of horrific images that pierced his skull and left him writhing in anticipation of the agony that was to surely follow, Legato did not waver. He wholeheartedly accepted his Master's judgment.

Truthfully, he was more frightened of the fact that he was acting against the Plant's proscribed role for him... thinking for himself, the less subtle might have termed it. It was a foolish and deadly inclination.

_Which is exactly why I'm indulging it,_ he thought cynically. _Forgive me, Knives-sama_. _I want to help you, but I must confess I have baser purposes in mind, as well. I only ask that you do not fear, for this will not be a repeat of July; I will not let you come to harm. _

Legato silently continued to stimulate the glands in Vash's body that would activate the Angel Arm. Along with destroying the city and its remaining inhabitants, he contended, it would also put an end to the Plant's delusions that he could ever be accepted by humanity in his lifetime. He would finally decide to cast off his abusive relationship with the spiders, perhaps forever.

_And there will be much rejoicing in heaven, for one saved sinner is more highly prized than ninety-nine who were never in any danger of turning away, _he recited perfunctorily. Those were his Master's words. Legato, to his eternal shame, couldn't care less what became of the younger Plant. He honestly only cared about the pain he was able to inflict at the moment.

It was interesting to witness the Stampede's reaction to the mutation of his beloved "mother," while he was still brooding on that subject. And more than a little amusing. He'd thrown in images of one of the two girls that always followed Vash around due to her remarkable resemblance to Rem Seibrem. Double the torture, double the pain, he thought wryly. He liked that logic.

Despite his weariness – and despite his best efforts not to appear gleeful, should Knives detect it and punish him even more as a result – the telepath found himself flashing a rare, ecstatic smile. The moonlight, as well as the light being generated from the Angel Arm, glinted fearsomely off of his barbed, wicked teeth.

* * *

An extremely bedraggled Nicholas D. Wolfwood was among those of Knives' followers having nothing to do with the incident at Augusta... and yet, sadly, that was not to remain a fact for long. He slung his enormous cross over both shoulders, resembling a life-size crucifix as he did so. Yawning hugely, he mounted the _Angelina II_ and sped off in the direction of Augusta City. As the priest drove at a velocity that seemed to actively defy the current desires of his body – namely, to return to his bed and abandon all thoughts of "Gung-Ho Guns" and "Millions Knives" – he still found strength enough to curse the phone call that had brought him out of his peaceful slumber and back onto the battlefield.

"It's Bluesummers," the voice on the other end had delivered in haunting tones, at first leading him to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that he was having a nightmare. "It appears we may yet have a use for you, Punisher. Report to Jeneora Rock at twenty-two hundred hours.

"That is all."

_Twenty-two hundred hours?_ the priest had struggled to comprehend as there was a click and the dial tone came on. _What the hell is he on abou... oh, ten o'clock._

A start, as he realized something else.

_Shit! That's in ten minutes!_

The end result was that he was forced to haul ass to Augusta, his fatigued body begging for rest with every minute he spent traveling across the harsh terrain. Yet, he considered grimly, this temporary discomfort paled in comparison to whatever punishment Knives reserved for those who ignored his orders.

_Maybe he'll have the blue-haired freak leave me stranded in the desert like those poor bastards in Tonim,_ he thought. _Or decapitate me like every other Plant engineer he's encountered. Or, I don't know, rip out my guts and eat 'em for a change..._

Such thoughts served to quicken his pace immeasurably.

As the priest neared his destination, he found himself gripped with a nameless fear. It grew more pronounced as a noise – _wait, is that a scream?_ – pounded in his head with such a ferocity as to dispel any remaining thoughts of sleep in him. With a moan that was indecipherable apart from the sheer apprehension it conveyed, he continued on.

Or at least, until the distinctly cross-shaped beam rent the sky and confirmed that he was, in fact, living a nightmare.

* * *

"Oh, my God," Meryl muttered as the light burst forth, bathing the city in its eerie glow. Suddenly she felt more compelled than ever to find Vash and bring him back safely, as she detected an overwhelmingly malevolent presence emitting from it. The two Insurance Girls watched in horror as sinuous coils of light snaked among and around the buildings, ripping them from their foundations and sending them wheeling into the blood-red sky as though they were no more than children's playthings. Entire homes burst into flames as they were struck by sudden, splintered lightning.

"My God," she said again. While her comment was brought on by genuine shock and awe, it lent a sort of irony to the situation that was not lost on her partner.

"M-Mister Priest would go nuts if he saw this," Millie began to say, surveying the cross with wide eyes, but her words were promptly drowned out by the sound of someone screaming. "He-he would think it was God come down to pass judgment – "

"No time for theology," Meryl interrupted, suddenly returning to her senses. She recognized Vash's voice, cutting like a knife through the gusts of air that were even now being caught up into the horrible, dense radiance. "We've got to go in there and help Vash!"

"What are you talking about?" Millie said, remounting her toma. "I'm getting you out of here!"

Meryl's eyes grew wide as dinner plates. "What? But you were the one who convinced me to go in the first place!"

"Well I didn't think it was going to be this dangerous!" Millie replied, obviously frustrated. She cast a baleful, backward glance toward the town square, as though she thought she could dispel the light and the heat with a look. "It's out of our hands now," she said, her voice gentler. "And anyway, if you die, you'll never see him again..."

"B, but I..." Meryl's voice trailed off into broken, indistinct murmurs.

Millie drew a deep, shuddering breath. Knowing full well that anything more she might say would have next to no effect on her Sempai, the big girl scooped up a protesting Meryl and kicked the toma's sides to make it go. Meryl's own beast followed closely behind, still reeling in shock from their encounter with the strange man, more than eager to leave the gutted city far behind it.

"No! – please, I have to go back – " Tears streamed down the short girl's face, but they were quickly swept away by the fierce winds that blew over them. She thrust her arm out toward the center of the city, as though she thought she could make contact with the light and, consequently, make contact with Vash. Her heart in her throat, her eyes shining with tears, she relayed a single message with all her might; never before, in fact, had she believed so strongly in Vash's ability to discern her thoughts.

_I never told you how I felt...!_

* * *

Meryl's thoughts – her love, her grief, her agony – rang out as clear and honest and true as the images bombarding Vash's psyche were not. It was as though a curtain of fog, tightly drawn over his eyes, had finally lifted to allow a shaft of light to enter, to direct and guide him through the nightmare. At long last, he recognized Legato's shrill, high-pitched laughter hovering like a poison miasma over everything, mingled with the sounds of rushing air and carnage being visited upon Augusta (his fault, of course... but he couldn't dwell on that, not if he wanted to escape). Swirling mists parted before him as he cast about, looking for the way out. The pain and the fear were still there, but he could at least regain control over the situation and prevent needless deaths.

The scream that had originally been ripped from his throat and given strength by the darkness had died down to little more than a whisper at this point, allowing him to once again reassure himself of his mental bearings. _I'm okay, I'm all right, I'm fine. Meryl isn't dead. _He refused to let the dense, damp darkness the telepath was subjecting him to consume him, even as his companions found themselves facing the exact opposite by virtue of the Angel Arm. _Once again, my fault... shut up, shut up, SHUT UP._

So what if Legato possessed a bit of the Talent, he thought in his continued attempts toward boosting his confidence. Big deal; he had some of it as well, so it wasn't as if he was totally outmatched. His face set in lines of firm resolve, Vash turned to face the mutated apparitions of his two beloved.

Almost immediately he had to remind himself of WHAT, exactly, his course of action was, as fear crept up his spine like a hot hand and held his neck fast in a relentless, crushing grip. Rem and Meryl were standing there smiling sweetly at him, to be sure... with the one notable and horrifying difference being that the two women had streams of blood trickling down their cheeks like tears, staining their formerly lovely figures in a deep crimson flow.

And then Rem began to speak.

_Is this how you intend to go, Vash the Stampede – not with a bang, but a whimper? Certainly I expected more out of you._

There was nothing of his deceased mother in that blood-curdling voice, the lips curled over gleaming canines, the crust rimmed red around the eyes... and yet he was absolutely spellbound, feet rooted to the ground in terror. The phantom Rem paid him no heed except to appear amused by his cowardice.

_Go ahead. Embrace it! You've already begun the process, so why not enjoy the destruction while you're at it...?_

_Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! _was his only, unintelligible reply.

_Oh, but that isn't up to me to decide. Only you have that power. Only you can deny your true nature. And yet, can you bring yourself to give up the intoxicating lure of absolute power? I don't think so..._

Vash choked as the air around them grew thick with moisture, heavy and oppressive. A globe of pale light appeared in what was left of his peripheral vision, casting a lurid glow on the site of the Plant's mental deterioration. He recognized what it meant and shuddered, pleading.

_No, please don't do that! Not the light!_

Once more his frantic appeals were ignored. Legato continued:

_It's something only you can do, you know. You're special, Vashon. I always knew you were. Other mothers boast of their children having the voice of an angel, but you've got all those brats beat _–_ you've got the arm of one!_

The memory of her being proud of him, telling him that he and Millones were special, tormented Vash. Why couldn't he just recognize the bastard telepath for who he was and what he was doing? Why couldn't he bring himself to let his mother go, even after a hundred years? The underlying question to all this was, with no small amount of force, brought to the surface of his mind: _How can I be so weak?_

Relief for him came at long last when Legato, enjoying the ease with which he manipulated the Stampede's emotions, stumbled in his playacting at Rem and made a crucial mistake.

_Think of it, Vash. Now that the true extent of your power has manifested a second time, the organic refuse _–_ the humans, that is _–_ will denounce and envy you all the more. Nowhere can you go without eventually revealing your true identity, resulting in your being instantly hated and feared. I read it just now in the mind of the little raven-haired girl and her hulking part –_

"That's a dirty lie," Vash said suddenly. The untimely interruption on his part amazed both of them: Vash, that his voice could be so calm; and Legato, that the Plant could even bring himself to speak at all. The phantom Rem gasped, drew back as if she'd been stung. Vash felt something flow back into his wrists and circulate throughout his entire body; he realized with a start that it was the "incessant female strength" he'd been wont to joke about with Meryl so long ago. His lungs expanded and he gratefully gulped down air.

"That's a lie," he repeated, as if saying so contributed to his growing strength. "Meryl could never think about me that way. She loves me. She told me as much a second ago." All around him the scene of blackness and despair and decay was cracking in several places, like a mirror being shattered against a wall, but it seemed to be of little importance to him now. What was important right now was clearing the Short Girl's name. Legato returned the Plant's piercing stare weakly, his ugly face creased in confusion and disbelief. "And she knows who I am, too! – she knows," he said, a sob creeping into his voice.

He did not say that he loved her back, That Way or otherwise. He would not even let himself think it. Legato would instantly use the information to his advantage at a later date, probably in the form of personally disposing of Meryl himself. He didn't intend to put her in that kind of danger, not ever. So while the telepath had an inkling that Vash cared for Meryl just as he cared for every other human being, he would never be given to know more than that.

"You underestimated me, Legato," Vash said, his voice deepening with conviction. "Get out!"

The command, while so simple, proved to be the telepath's undoing as well as the key to restoring Vash's autonomy. Ghostly tendrils began to separate from one another as the form of Rem – the form that Legato had fought so hard to maintain – evaporated with a shriek of rage. The Plant turned his gaze toward Meryl, expecting her to disappear too, but that didn't happen.

Brushing back the thick tufts of hair that had fallen forward into her eyes, Meryl looked up at him with an expression that was at turns exhausted and fearful. She looked no more capable of frightening an infant, and he wondered at how he'd ever been so terrified of her in the first place. Her face was streaked with the rusty color of dried blood; tears coursed down her cheeks as she advanced, timorously, toward Vash.

"Meryl?" he whispered as she came closer. "No, please... it's not safe. Don't come near me."

His words fell on deaf ears. The short girl took a few more trembling steps before collapsing against him with whimpers. Vash immediately caught her up in his arms, held her to his chest and began to stroke her hair.

"No, no, don't cry," he said, still in soft tones, still forgetting that she wasn't actually there. "I won't let anyone hurt you... I promise..."

"I love you," she said without lifting her head. His eyes widened. Her voice sounded real and warm, nothing like that of someone he was merely imagining. "I just wanted to tell you that."

_Is she really only an apparition?_ he wondered, amazed beyond measure. Or had he in fact established some kind of connection with the real Meryl? He continued to stare down at her for a few moments longer, uncomprehending, before bursting into hot, noisy tears.

"I'm sorry!" he sobbed, his arms reaching out to encircle her entire body now. He clutched her against his quivering form, as if he feared she would be snatched away from him at any moment. "Please, forgive me – I never meant to hurt you – "

"But I do forgive you, you idiot," she said, turning her face toward his; and he suddenly, quite unexpectedly, found himself kissing her with a strength and passion that shocked them both.

Dead silence reigned for what seemed like forever. Vash felt himself falling headlong into a whirling vortex of thoughts and feelings that were completely foreign, and yet never more natural. Dizzy, he struggled to put them into words.

_Rem... was this the kind of happiness you used to share with Alex? Please, I beg of you, don't let it be taken away from me..._

And yet, despite his pleading, the reality of it all had and always would continue to mock the gunslinger's attempts to cling to normalcy. His right arm rippled with a new, even fiercer intensity that prompted him to scream in agony. Her eyes dilating with fear, Meryl reached out to hold him tighter to her bosom; but her nerveless fingers closed around dead air. Vash sensed the connection between them was fading fast – sensed his body falling farther and farther away from her with every moment that went by – but he was helpless to do anything about it as a plethora of feathers suddenly burst out of nowhere, obscuring his vision and making it difficult to breathe. His lungs rattling with labored gasps, Vash strained to look around him. The light was bright and harsh, so much so that his eyes filled with tears and blinded him all the more.

He blinked once, only to find the horror of July unleashed in full force upon the hapless city of Augusta.


	8. Epilogue

**Child of the Wilderness**

**Epilogue**

All around him the world was taking on nightmarish, blood-red hues as Augusta was subjected to mounting devastation. Paralyzed with fear, he had nearly collapsed when his Master's younger brother had ordered him to run. But something stirred within him and he had indeed done so.

The door to hell had been thrown wide open, and Rai-dei the Blade was desperate to escape.

The samurai ran at breakneck speed, the convenience of roller blades having long since been stolen from him when a sudden tremor rocked the ground, swept him into the air in a gale of sand and wind. Heedless of the blood and bruises that his battered body had sustained, he propelled himself into the air and leaped over a tottering fence of steel and wire. He landed nimbly and continued on.

At long last the samurai caught sight of an area that had not been defiled beyond recognition, and with the last of his remaining strength he raced toward it. But he stopped dead in his tracks when a familiar presence suddenly accosted his vision.

Wolfwood's face was pale and drawn; the cigarette dangling from his lips shook perceptibly. Yet his eyes were steely, filled with resolve, and they never left the terror-stricken samurai for an instant.

"So," he said after a pause. This did not have the effect he intended – the air was saturated with the sounds of explosion and destruction, so Rai-dei probably didn't hear him – but it didn't matter. Rai-dei would have been scared shitless if a children's choir had been singing nearby.

"Never thought we'd meet in these circumstances," Wolfwood continued. Blood pounded in his ears, but he imagined it had to be a goddamned full-section orchestra inside Rai-dei's head. "It's unfortunate, but trash doesn't stop being trash just because it happens to get into trouble."

"W-what are you talking about?" Rai-dei stammered. He let out a choked gasp when, all of a sudden, Wolfwood silently produced a gun from his coat pocket.

"No... Punisher... why are you doing this," Rai-dei protested weakly.

The priest scowled. "My name's Nicholas D. Wolfwood, you son of a bitch." His finger tightened on the trigger.

"N... no!"

Rai-dei opened his mouth to scream, but all that issued from his throat was a faint gurgle as Wolfwood's bullets tore it open.

* * *

Legato stood by silently, awaiting the arrival of his Master. It had been an hour since Vash had destroyed Augusta, ground it into the dust of Gunsmoke as though it were no more than a burning wick that had required a calloused heel to stomp on it. Jeneora Rock had gone with it as well, but he had escaped long before that could become a fact of major concern to him.

He would entrap Vash the Stampede next time – _I swear to it!_ Before he had been too forthright, too aggressive in his efforts to ruin the Plant. He should have resorted to subtlety, which had always suited him well in the past. Once again his human impulses had betrayed him.

And worse things were yet to come.

He felt Knives' presence – his virulent hatred of insubordination, and its more detestable companion, failure – long before he ever caught sight of the gorgeous unclothed body leaning over him menacingly, the long blonde locks barely brushing the smooth rock floor.

Legato closed his eyes in forlorn weariness as his Master gently placed his hands on either side of Legato's back. He deserved no part in the glory that Knives' righteousness, whether it manifested itself in anger or otherwise, inevitably led him to feel. The blue-haired telepath trembled with abject terror – and then, screamed with pain beyond imagining – as his body was crushed like a worm underfoot.

He was eternally thankful, at least, to have not lost his left arm.

Some time even later than that, in the confinement of an obelisk coffin carried about by a large creature under his control, Legato conceived of another method for destroying the Master's brother. After a few weeks in which he honed his Talent, he decided to put it to the test.

Vash had not, after all, left Augusta in all that time.

* * *

A lone man stood among the ruins of Augusta. Myriad injuries ravaged his body, while his clothes remained tattered beyond recognition. He had absolutely no memory of the past few weeks – had no idea what he was doing here, in fact. He couldn't even remember his own name; and yet as he looked about every which way, taking in the countless scenes of wreckage and destruction, he was possessed of the faint, sickening feeling that he had somehow caused all this.

His gaze instinctively went to the Fifth Moon, which hung like a pale, severed head in the sky. A hole of about nearly an ile in diameter had been burned into its surface. He whispered the final words of a melody playing from the deepest, darkest corners of his mind, despite having never heard it before in his life.

_So laugh in your loneliness, child of the wilderness._

_Learn to be lonely..._

_Life can be lived..._

_Life can be loved alone._

* * *

_To: Bernardelli Insurance Society_

_From: Meryl Stryfe_

_Date: August 15, 127 AF_

_Subject Line: Regarding the Incident in Augusta_

_Am sure that all of you are well aware by now of the city's destruction, as well as that of Jeneora Rock. Insurance premiums are projected to be insurmountable. No lives were taken. Disaster has been attributed to Vash the Stampede and an unknown person. Please check records for any evidence of crimes involving a man named Millones Seibrem._

_Am requesting an immediate withdrawal from this detail following your reply._

_The End_


End file.
